moose said
gavriel said
chiribi said
Following your logic, to say that he was “unimpressive” does not help much either, as there are many individual differences in terms of what people find impressive.I agree, but it is something in place of nothing, in addition to what we know about the average physical properties of people from this area in ancient times. Also, there is nothing in Isaiah that supports “uglyness”, so that may be some kind of polemic introduced by Celsus.
Maybe LXX says it clearer?
he has no form nor comeliness; and we saw him, but he had no form nor beauty. 3 But his form was ignoble, and inferior to that of the children of men;
The text of Isaiah used by the early Christians must have been a version of the Septuagint, and it needs an expert in Greek to say if your quote is a precise translation. It is Brenton’s translation from 1851? Modern bibles has variants of “he had no form or majesty that we should look at him”.
Oxford University Press in 2009, NETS has this translation of the Septuagint:
“Lord, who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? 2 He grew up before him like a child, like a root in a thirsty land; he has no form or glory, and we saw him, and he had no form or beauty. 3 But his form was without honor, failing beyond all men, a man being in calamity and knowing how to bear sickness; because his face is turned away, he was dishonored and not esteemed”
gavriel said
chiribi said
Following your logic, to say that he was “unimpressive” does not help much either, as there are many individual differences in terms of what people find impressive.I agree, but it is something in place of nothing, in addition to what we know about the average physical properties of people from this area in ancient times. Also, there is nothing in Isaiah that supports “uglyness”, so that may be some kind of polemic introduced by Celsus.
In what way is it more, or “in place of nothing?” I don’t find it more helpful. It is “nothing” as well.
chiribi said
gavriel said
chiribi said
Following your logic, to say that he was “unimpressive” does not help much either, as there are many individual differences in terms of what people find impressive.I agree, but it is something in place of nothing, in addition to what we know about the average physical properties of people from this area in ancient times. Also, there is nothing in Isaiah that supports “uglyness”, so that may be some kind of polemic introduced by Celsus.
In what way is it more, or “in place of nothing?” I don’t find it more helpful. It is “nothing” as well.
It is possible that when the early Christians read the Septuagint Isaiah: “He grew up before him like a child, like a root in a thirsty land; he has no form or glory, and we saw him, and he had no form or beauty”, they thought it was a close match with the memories of the physical appearance of Jesus. It excludes a good-looking appearance.
gavriel said
chiribi said
gavriel said
chiribi said
Following your logic, to say that he was “unimpressive” does not help much either, as there are many individual differences in terms of what people find impressive.I agree, but it is something in place of nothing, in addition to what we know about the average physical properties of people from this area in ancient times. Also, there is nothing in Isaiah that supports “uglyness”, so that may be some kind of polemic introduced by Celsus.
In what way is it more, or “in place of nothing?” I don’t find it more helpful. It is “nothing” as well.
It is possible that when the early Christians read the Septuagint Isaiah: “He grew up before him like a child, like a root in a thirsty land; he has no form or glory, and we saw him, and he had no form or beauty”, they thought it was a close match with the memories of the physical appearance of Jesus. It excludes a good-looking appearance.
I don’t think you answered the question.
Another point: Nobody is saying that Isaiah talks about Jesus being “ugly.” The adjetive is simply not used, nor implied.
chiribi said
gavriel said
chiribi said
gavriel said
chiribi said
Following your logic, to say that he was “unimpressive” does not help much either, as there are many individual differences in terms of what people find impressive.I agree, but it is something in place of nothing, in addition to what we know about the average physical properties of people from this area in ancient times. Also, there is nothing in Isaiah that supports “uglyness”, so that may be some kind of polemic introduced by Celsus.
In what way is it more, or “in place of nothing?” I don’t find it more helpful. It is “nothing” as well.
It is possible that when the early Christians read the Septuagint Isaiah: “He grew up before him like a child, like a root in a thirsty land; he has no form or glory, and we saw him, and he had no form or beauty”, they thought it was a close match with the memories of the physical appearance of Jesus. It excludes a good-looking appearance.
I don’t think you answered the question.
Another point: Nobody is saying that Isaiah talks about Jesus being “ugly.” The adjetive is simply not used, nor implied.
Feel free to think so. On the second point, that’s exactly what I said, so I suggested that it was a part of Celsus’ polemic, drawn from other sources, or invented by him.
gavriel said
chiribi said
gavriel said
chiribi said
gavriel said
chiribi said
Following your logic, to say that he was “unimpressive” does not help much either, as there are many individual differences in terms of what people find impressive.I agree, but it is something in place of nothing, in addition to what we know about the average physical properties of people from this area in ancient times. Also, there is nothing in Isaiah that supports “uglyness”, so that may be some kind of polemic introduced by Celsus.
In what way is it more, or “in place of nothing?” I don’t find it more helpful. It is “nothing” as well.
It is possible that when the early Christians read the Septuagint Isaiah: “He grew up before him like a child, like a root in a thirsty land; he has no form or glory, and we saw him, and he had no form or beauty”, they thought it was a close match with the memories of the physical appearance of Jesus. It excludes a good-looking appearance.
I don’t think you answered the question.
Another point: Nobody is saying that Isaiah talks about Jesus being “ugly.” The adjetive is simply not used, nor implied.
Feel free to think so. On the second point, that’s exactly what I said, so I suggested that it was a part of Celsus’ polemic, drawn from other sources, or invented by him.
Feel free to think so? In what way did you? That is a cop out.
Regarding your second answer, well, I guess it is over my head; too deep for me.
Another indication of Jesus’ appearance is Paul’s prescription of short hair for men and long hair for women. In this respect he probably voices the habits of the early movement. So in a sum we can rule out a long-haired , blond, northern European looking Jesus, as it has been appearing in most depictions of Jesus for children in modern times.
gavriel said
Another indication of Jesus’ appearance is Paul’s prescription of short hair for men and long hair for women. In this respect he probably voices the habits of the early movement. So in a sum we can rule out a long-haired , blond, northern European looking Jesus, as it has been appearing in most depictions of Jesus for children in modern times.
Yes.
This is quite interesting:
** you do not have permission to see this link **
Of course there is no way at all to know what he looked like, (Isaiah isn’t talking about Jesus) but this is a reconstruction of an average first century Jewish face by a team of Israeli and British forensic anthropologists. They aren’t saying this is what he looked like, but that this is the kind of face he may have had based on the available evidence. I’d much rather have a beer with this bloke that with the saintly blond European Jesus!
If you google comments about this image, it’s amazing how many people are offended by it. I don’t know why.
Paul’s comment about short hair for men is his own opinion, I reckon. He seemed to have a lot of personal opinions that he liked to push on people, thank you very much.
gmatthews said
Judith said
gavriel, Would women have bathed Jesus’ feet with their tears and dryed them with their hair if he had been short and ugly?Look at how ugly Charlie Manson is/was. He had quite the harem and was getting it several times a day. In a cult of personality you can convince or compel the right people to do just about anything. I’m not saying this is how it was for Jesus, but some people can make others do things they wouldn’t normally do and looks have nothing to do with it.
Yes, I agree with your point about Charlie Mason. I was also able to persuade my beautiful wife to marry me, so that further lends credence to your point. 🙂
I do think that this particular anecdote of washing feet with tears and drying them with hair is a tad far fetched. Either Jesus had very, very tiny feet or the women had unbelievably productive tear ducts, and the properties of human hair do not include significant absorption qualities. Most likely this was always understood to be an exaggeration of the seeing rainbows and hearing celestial music associated with seeing the object of one’s affection variety.
gavriel said
moose said
gavriel said
chiribi said
I have read about this, but would like to hear the opinion of people here. I have also raised the issue with Bart and hope that he will give us his take on it at some point.The earliest church tradition is a 2. century quote from Celsus, saying that he was ugly and small.
This is nothing strange. This is precisely how the suffering servant was described by Isaiah.
Isaiah 53:
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
3 He was despised and rejected by mankind,
a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.Could be, but in this case it would indicate that Celsus, an opponent of Christianity, lifted his view on smallness and uglyness from Christian sources. It is hard to say if the earliest Christians found Isaiah fitting to historical reality or if they invented “historical reality” by accepting every detail found in Isaiah. If one (for other reasons) accepts the hypothesis of a historical Jesus, it is reasonable to conclude that these early Christians found many matching elements between the Jesus they knew, and the description of The Suffering Servant. Or else they would not have considered Isaiah 53 to be prophesying on Jesus. Secondly, over time they also came to accept elements in Isaiah which did not originally match. Therefor it is difficult to say what was in the original set of matching elements. Jesus was perhaps small, insignificant and ugly, or they deduced it from Isaiah. Who knows?
Gott love all the assumptions. I’m inclined to think Celsus was trying to irritate his opponents by chosing an offensive description. ** you do not have permission to see this link **
spiker said
Gott love all the assumptions. I’m inclined to think Celsus was trying to irritate his opponents by chosing an offensive description. ** you do not have permission to see this link **
I thought marginalizing and demonizing one’s opponents (in this case what the founder of their belief looked like) would have been de riguer. Seriously, would anyone expect Celsus to give an accurate description of Jesus? Why? Didn’t he exaggerate Christian practices in order to make fun of them?
Moose: What reason do we have to think that Isaiah was talking about Jesus?
There’s good reason to believe he was not. Isaiah was talking about the “suffering servant” in the past tense centuries before Jesus was born. If that is not enough Isaiah actually specifies earlier that the “suffering servant” is non other than Israel
gmatthews said
spiker said
Gott love all the assumptions. I’m inclined to think Celsus was trying to irritate his opponents by chosing an offensive description. ** you do not have permission to see this link **I thought marginalizing and demonizing one’s opponents (in this case what the founder of their belief looked like) would have been de riguer. Seriously, would anyone expect Celsus to give an accurate description of Jesus? Why? Didn’t he exaggerate Christian practices in order to make fun of them?
Absolutely!
BDEhrman
FreedomBen
evgendob
Robert
1 Guest(s)